The communications war

The communications war that accompanied the battles at the border was almost as fraught. The Turkish propaganda machine, which had sought to portray Greece’s border as a leaky, defenseless sieve, shifted gear after the initial push at Kastanies failed.

It started feeding digital media and foreign correspondents at the border with “news” and “information” that cast the Greeks as nothing less than murderers of civilians.

The objective was obviously to turn international public opinion against Greece and to portray the botched invasion as a guileless attempt by a few thousand desperate asylum seekers, so as to shift attention away from the fact that the migrants were being exploited and weaponized by Ankara.

The European officials who visited Evros with Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis were not fooled though.

On the Greek side of the border, officers with bullhorns transmitted the message in at least four different languages to the migrants camped on the other side that their attempt to break through was illegal and would have consequences. They wanted the message to make its way to the thousands camped further away, waiting for the border to fall so they could rush through.

At the end of the day, Greece won the “Battle of Evros” on the ground and Turkey suffered a loss of credibility. The coverage around the world was unflattering for Greece though, as it mainly consisted of emotionally charged reports, with little of the big picture, and accusations by nongovernmental organizations and human rights groups.

Nevertheless, there were those who argued that, despite the harsh and perhaps unfair depiction of events, Greece benefited from the fact that the events of February 28, 2020 showed that it wasn’t kidding.